Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Air Awliya, The Caliph & The Flight into Fana - now every heart can fly!

Flight into Fana.

Yes indeed, every heart can fly with Air Awliya™. Some are flying low under the radar, other hearts are flying high and about to enter into Earth's orbit while the very few have broken right through the Earth's gravitational pull and is heading for the Sun - towards fana (the self's state of annihilation in the Divine Presence of God) and really, God knows what else...

Friday night, in KLIA.

Flying with my Ego and Crashing into Mountains

And my own flight? Gee, how nice of you to ask! I am not flying very high. I am flying close to ground level, hugging the treeline and hills in the hope of enjoying this material world as well as the spiritual world. This low-level flight is not without its hazards and I have crashed into a couple of mountains in my days. This normally happens when I am wrestling with my ego over the controls of my soul-plane. My ego wins too often, dagnabbit!

Present day, in Jordan!

The Flying Mounted Archers are coming!

But I have happy news. The maiden flight of Air Awliya has already flown last Friday night when a contingent of mounted archers of Malaysia took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, bound for Amman, Jordan. These keen gentlemen (and one lady, I think) are about to participate in the Al Faris International Horseback Archery Competition, an international event open to all exponents of traditional horseback archery. No fancy fibre-glass / composite alloy modern bows here. The competition is under the royal patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Ku Ash & his beloved Mawlana...al-fatihah

Most of these gentlemen are friends, followers and groupies of al Marhum Shaykh Raja Ashman Shah ibni Sultan Azlan Shah (Ku Ash) who recently passed away almost 2 months ago. I cannot speak for Ku Ash (I can barely speak for myself), but I have no doubt that he would be pleased to see the progress of the traditional mounted archery here in Malaysia, something he was particularly concerned with (as I am informed).

The New Caliph
The followers of Ku Ash are by spiritual default, the followers of Mawlana Shaykh Muhammed Nazim al-Haqqani ar-Rabbani of Lefke, Cyprus. It is coincidental that about a week after the passing of Ku Ash, the Mawlana informed the world of the Divine determination of aforementioned King Abdullah II of Jordan as the new Caliph of Islam, Amirul Muqminin of the new epoch. And now again, coincidentally, a group from Ku Ash's jema'ah (congregation) and other jema'ahs from Italy, Spain, Germany etc. is gathering in the Hashemite Kingdom for a round of horseback archery. I love coincidences, don't you?

The Caliph of Islam, Commander of the Believers,
Shadow of God on Earth.

And coincidentally (last one for this posting, I promise), here you are and here I am. Sharing thoughts in the realm of the heart. God bless you.